First and Second Estates.--The "first estate," as already explained, means the pre-existence, in which the spirits of men "walked by sight;" while the "second estate" signifies life on earth, where these same spirits--"added upon" by being given mortal bodies, with opportunities for development, are required to "walk by faith," with their knowledge of the past temporarily obscured; a greater test of integrity, and one that results, to those who overcome, in a far more glorious reward than any previously bestowed. Reward and Punishment.--In my opening theme, "The Story of God," it was shown how Lucifer and his legions rebelled over the choice of the Christ, and were cast down. Failing to keep their first estate, they could not be "added upon." This was their punishment--that they should not have bodies, by means of which spirits become souls, capable of eternal progression. All the rest--two-thirds of the population of the spirit world--were given bodies as a reward for keeping their first estate, and were promised a glorious resurrection after death, as a further reward, if they succeeded in keeping their second estate. All Not Alike.--All who kept the first estate were added upon; but not all alike. The rewards were not the same in every case, though they were undoubtedly just and appropriate. Some of those "intelligences" were more deserving than others; some nobler and greater than others; and because of their superior merit and larger capacity, they were made "rulers" over the rest. And Abraham, "thou art one of them: thou wast chosen before thou wast born"--chosen to bear the priesthood, the divine right to rule, and to stand at the head of a dispensation, ministering in holy things for the salvation of mankind. Such is "Mormonism's" presentation, in part, of the Abrahamic or Israelitish problem. Original Excellence.--What had given Abraham his superior standing in the heavens? Had he always been noble and great? Was it an original or an acquired excellence, or both? That there is such a thing as original excellence, with different degrees of intelligence among pre-existent spirits, appears from the teachings in this very Book of Abraham--not only the passages cited, but others, in which the Lord is represented as saying: "If there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end; they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal. * * * These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all."--(Abraham 3:18, 19.)